Mr. Speaker, I would like to put on the record that I am not as enthused about this legislation as the member opposite appears to be. I am from a farming area, I am surrounded by farmers and I am a farmer myself. I know that there are concerns in the agricultural community about the implications of the bill. There are also concerns in the hunting community. A few minutes ago my colleague from the Bloc talked about the fact that this is just too undefined for us to be able to pass this comfortably.
In his intervention, my colleague from the NDP talked about the fact that he is comfortable with proposed subsection 182.3(2), which states:
--“negligently” means departing markedly from the standard of care that a reasonable person would use.
On the surface that does not look too bad, but I am concerned about the courts getting involved because we have had indications from the animal rights organizations that they want to use this legislation to impact traditional farming practices. We are aware of the fact that all it takes is one judge to rule. We have had social engineering in this country before, whereby one judge in a province has ruled and governments have not appealed that ruling. We find that social engineering has changed things considerably.
Does the member have a concern about this? Is he concerned about protecting the farmers in the rural communities? Does he have any suggestions for improvements or amendments we could make which would ensure farmers and hunters that we are going to protect them and let them have their traditional practices?